Returning desktop icons

Q. I downloaded pictures from my camera onto my computer and I accidentally created shortcuts for each picture on my desktop. Now, my desktop is covered in icons which I try to delete, but which reappear when I restart my computer. What can I do to get rid of these?

A. It sounds like you may have more shortcuts on your desktop than you realize. That’s not hard to do if you accidentally create shortcuts to hundreds of files on your computer. And since it’s likely that all these image files are similarly named, you might be thinking their the same files you deleted when in fact, they’re not.

Windows will not stop you for putting too many icons on your desktop. Let’s say that your resolution and monitor allow for you to see 100 icons on your desktop and you create 150. You will only see the first 100. The next 50 will be off the screen.

So lets say you remove 25 icons. Now it looks like you have free space on your desktop but what you don’t see are other 50 icons off the screen. Now when you reboot 25 of those icons move into the free space and it could look like deleted icons have reappeared when, in fact, your just seeing icons that were off the screen previously,

What I do is this. I create a folder on the desktop and move shortcuts/files from the desktop into it that I want to keep and delete the ones I don’t. Then I right click on the desktop and select “Arrange Icons” so the off-screen icons move into the space I created and repeat until I get them all.